The present invention relates generally to displays, and more particularly, using pulse-width modulation to drive one or more display elements of an electro-optical display, for example, to digitally drive pixels from pulse width modulated waveforms in a liquid crystal display, such as a silicon light modulator with digital storage.
Pulse-width modulation (PWM) has been employed to drive liquid crystal displays (displays). A pulse-width modulation scheme may control displays, including emissive and non-emissive displays, which may generally comprise multiple display elements. In order to control such displays, the current, voltage or any other physical parameter that may be driving the display element may be manipulated. When appropriately driven, these display elements, such as pixels, normally develop light that can be perceived by viewers.
In an emissive display example, to drive a display (e.g., a display matrix having a set of pixels), electrical current is typically passed through selected pixels by applying a voltage to the corresponding rows and columns from drivers coupled to each row and column in some display architectures. An external controller circuit typically provides the necessary input power and data signal. The data signal is generally supplied to the column lines and synchronized to the scanning of the row lines. When a particular row is selected, the column lines determine which pixels are lit. An output in the form of an image is thus displayed on the display by successively scanning through all the rows in a frame.
For instance, a silicon light modulator (SLM) uses an electric field to modulate the orientation of a liquid crystal (LC) material. By the selective modulation of the liquid crystal material, an electronic display may be produced. The orientation of the LC material affects the intensity of light going through the LC material. Therefore, by sandwiching the LC material between an electrode and a transparent top plate, the optical properties of the LC material may be modulated. In operation, by changing the voltage applied across the electrode and the transparent top plate, the LC material may produce different levels of intensity on the optical output, altering an image produced on a screen.
FIG. 7 illustrates a portion of a light engine or projector apparatus that utilizes SLMs, as is known in the art. The projector includes a polarization beam splitter (PBS) which passes light of a first polarization and reflects (at a 90 degree angle) light of a second polarization. As illustrated, blue light of the first polarization and red light of the second polarization enter the PBS, and the blue beam is passed through and the red beam is reflected. Each beam is passed through a respective quarter-wave plate before striking a respective SLM. Each SLM includes a pixel array for modulating the light, and a reflective rear surface for reflecting the modulated beam back through the quarter-wave plate to the PBS. The image-content-injected beams emerge from the PBS, and may then be directed to e.g. a display device (not shown).
Typically, a silicon light modulator (SLM) is a display device where a liquid crystal material (LC) is driven by circuitry located at each pixel. For example, when the LC material is driven, an analog pixel might represent the color value of the pixel with a voltage that is stored on a capacitor under the pixel. This voltage can then directly drive the LC material to produce different levels of intensity on the optical output. Digital pixel architectures store the value under the pixel in a digital fashion. In this case, it is not possible to directly drive the LC material with the digital information, i.e., there needs to be some conversion to an analog form that the LC material can use.
Pulse-width modulation (PWM) may be utilized for driving an SLM device. However, several conventional PWM schemes add up non-overlapping waveforms to build a PWM waveform. Unfortunately, these conventional ways of driving displays using a typical PWM scheme may not be adequate, as multiple edges may get generated in the PWM waveform. Using this approach, for example, the LC material may not be driven by a signal that is a function of the desired color value. Therefore, such a multi-edged PWM waveform that draws upon multiple non-overlapping pulses to build the PWM waveform for driving a display device or display system architecture may not precisely control the LC material being driven. Furthermore, this type of driving control that simply uses a fixed waveform may not be easily tuned to a particular LC material.
Thus, better ways are desired to drive display elements in displays, especially in digital pixel architectures.